Merida Moments
One moment, you find yourself in the center of a small pueblo outside of town. Students dressed in crisp school uniforms ride by down the middle of the street on their bicycles, laughing and calling to each other in the hot midday sun. There is not another car but yours in sight. In the distance, a 16th Century church rises against the bright blue sky. You wonder "Where am I?".
Then there's the far-off stare of a huipile-clad woman in the streets of the mercado, her dark hair bound and coiled behind her, children at her side. As if she wonders what she is doing in this crowded market with cars and fumes and cel phones. Where have all the chicle hunters gone?
Another time, you are struck by the unaffected smile of a city worker as you walk by. He is doing his job, sweeping trash in the street. You aren't young or beautiful. You smile, he smiles and you both say Buenos Días because that is what people do here.
You notice the morning traffic of black xcav crows as they commute in flocks up Paseo Montejo, going north for the day. They swoop straight down the avenue in surges, flying between the trees, like strangely silent flying businessmen. At dusk, the reverse commute is noisy and raucous, thousands of black-suited birds screeching and reciting the details of their day, ecstatic about the encroaching evening and their nightly party in the trees.
There are those precious Sunday mornings in the Centro. Not in the zocalo, where the crowds gather, but out in the surrounding neighborhoods. Whole blocks with no cars, no people, just the quiet heat of midday, the background cries of boys playing out their soccer dreams in a distant street. Old men rock on old chairs in old doorways, stubbled and bare-chested. Old women sit inside their homes watching Catholic mass in Mexico City on television. Briefly, the silence is broken as a family drives up, unpacks itself from a little car, carries aluminum-covered dishes into a dark doorway.
Then there's the sound of empty coconut shells clapping together when a horse-drawn calesa trots by, mixing centuries with uncanny ease.
Or that wonderful Latin-American phenomenon of lovers in the park, when each bench is occupied as if it were a hotel room with a Do Not Disturb sign hung on the door. Lovers mate in full sight, fully clothed. Whispers and smiles swirl around them like honeybees, protecting their intimacy from passers-by. Sometimes, a woman will glance up from her lovers' conversation but though her face is caught by the streetlight, she doesn't see you walking by.
Sometimes, you happen to notice the dripping, tropical crowded undercurrent of revolución just after a heavy rain, when you can sense the plants in your garden start closing in, plotting an overthrow of order with their newly-emboldened viridian chaos.
Or you're driving past a Mayan pueblo after sunset, when each small home glows from within, bare lightbulbs or christmas-lit altars casting light out onto the paths. The present recedes like a tide to reveal a timeless place where people visit in the streets and children play quietly, dogs lie down unafraid and women laugh.
Every once in awhile, it's just the pink prick of bougainvilla, the hollow drum of the ceiba tree, the swishing miniskirts of palm trees with long legs, the flaming flowers of the flamboyanes, and the yellow dripping lluvia de oro and its rain of gold.
And then there's that indescribable high when the red grease slips out from between two ends of the folded tortilla and drips onto your hand just as the almost-sweet spices of cochinita are taken over by the intensity that spreads across your tongue like a habanero prairie fire and blossoms into your throat like a bright red hibiscus of pain.
And afterwards the cool, pop-rock elixir that pours out of the sea-green iconic bottle, like foam from a Caribbean wave, quenching the fire that burns from your mouth to the back of your brain. Brief relief, and then the flames surge back, unabated and hissing for more. Why is it that Coca Cola tastes so delicious here?
At times, its that lazy moment when the day reaches the golden hour, and the sun casts elaborate shadows through the iron protectores across your window onto the brightly colored mosaico tile floor.
Or the moment when you find yourself sitting in Santiago Park, on a park bench painted with 100 coats of green paint, listening to the birds and church bells chiming, watching a young family on a bench opposite you. The children are making faces at each other while they eat ice cream. And the young parents are just quietly enjoying them.
Late one night, you wander down to the center of town and find the zocalo ringed by groups of men, in twos and threes, dressed smartly in their guayaberas and carrying old guitars. From around the square, the strains of singing and strumming reaches you and you realize they are all here just to sing. And some of them have been coming here for decades. Where else could you be but Merida?
The last few days it has been moments when you see your neighbors, walking down the unusually quiet street, blowing horns, laughing and generally enjoying themselves because they just walked back from watching the Carnaval parade.
Merida sometimes seems like it is lost in time, just drifting, occasionally caught up in a swirl of history, but a city apart, receding from destiny, approaching perfection, hotter than hell. Sometimes the beauty of it just stops you in your tracks. For a moment.
Comments
alejandro bolanos 17 years ago
dios mio!!
I am crying as i write this letters.
It becomes hard to see the right leter i need to type on this keyboard.
I wonder what nerves did your writing touched to make me feel this way?
I should not be crying!!
I am not a yucateco, nor have I ever been to merida or the state.
So why im i crying?
It is because your writing made me remember a lot of things that are mexico.
I am crying not of sadness but hapinness!!!
I am a mexican living in the usa.
I am going back to mexico soon!
Thaks for all the poetry.
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Yucatan Living - Merida for Cigar Lovers 17 years ago
[...] We have a saying here in the shop, Fuma menos – Fuma mejor, or Smoke less - Smoke better. Adding an occasional cigar to your routine helps to enhance the elements of the Merida environment we have all come to appreciate. Sitting and smoking a cigar allows you to slow down, relax and enjoy your surroundings; listen to the birds, the far-off marching band, and the fiesta. Let the breeze brush against you as you watch the slow plume of white smoke escape your cigar and rise to the clouds. Choose you cigar wisely and you will be richly rewarded with a deep and rewarding Merida Moment. [...]
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Ayata 17 years ago
I read this out loud to Ned, and I had to keep stopping because something kept catching in my throat and tears were blurring my vision. You have beautifully captured so much of what I love about the Yucatan, and have made me miss it even more ferociously. I can hardly stand it. I am planning to relocate there soon, and these little reminders make me want to leave tomorrow. Thank you, Ayata
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Luchia 17 years ago
Thank you....for a moment or two, I thought I was there right with you.....God willing, I will personally see the beauty of the people and the places soon......
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Khaki 17 years ago
Frank (Orgullo Criollo),
As a Luisiana gringa criollo francés… I too have “orgullo criollo†– nice to see the expression…
As for your larger question, that is one we all know the answer to – but it is so multifaceted that it certainly cannot be fully discussed in this forum. As we matured, we accepted the reality that the world is simply too big for us to fix all of its problems for all of its people. But we are not simply “lost in the worldâ€â€¦ We are in Yucatan… a place where everyone is working around the clock to improve the standard of living for all Yucatecos and ensure that our young people have less perceived need to cross the border than other young Latinos might feel. Those who do go have excelled in all they have turned their hands to do in the E.U., giving us an even greater measure of Orgullo De Yucateco because of the respect earned by our people in the E.U. No matter how you look at it – Yucatan is a great place to live… and it is a great place to claim as one’s home, no matter where one chooses to live in the world.
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Orgullo Criollo 17 years ago
¿Si la ciudad de Mérida era un lugar mágico tan asombroso, por qué hay 20 millones de ilegales mexicanos en los EU?
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Gin 17 years ago
What a beautiful picture you have painted, an artist could not have done any better with a canvas and brush. Do you ever get the feeling of being infinitesimal in the scope of the centuries that have have passed? It's like time stands still and one realizes they are but a second in time on this beautiful landscape.
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Working Gringos 17 years ago
For those of you not fluent in Spanish yet, here's what Susana said:
I found your blog by chance... I'm Mexican (expat) living in the suburbs of Texas. I love your blog! To tell you the truth, I don't read it that often because you make me miss Mexico as nothing else can!
Adapting to live in the "estates" (that's how I call it), is hard after you experience everything that you mention in your blog, and I come from Mexico city... Imagine that!
Thank you for (letting people know)... your blog allows people to see Mexico from a different perspective. Here they only see us as wetbacks, but they don't know anything about our culture and they don't want to know about us. Thanks to blogs like yours, there is a little bit of Mexico on the internet, with marvelous descriptions... what a way to write! Thank you for describing us, expressing with words our color, our folklore and our flavor!
Keep up the good work! I hope you keep having success and continue enjoying the Mexican peoples' warmth, and that you continue delighting us with your verse. And for the expats on this side, (I hope that you continue) to remind us about our beautiful Mexico.
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Susana 17 years ago
Encontre tu blog de puritita casualidad.... Soy una mexicana (ex patriota) que ahora vive en los suburbios en Texas. Me encanta tu blog! Pero te voy a ser sincera, no lo leo muy seguido porque me haces extrañar a mi Mexico como nadie o nada mas!
Adaptarse a la vida en los "estates" como le digo yo, es muy dificil despues de vivir todo lo que mencionas en tus blogs. Y yo vengo de la Cuidad de Mexico! Imaginate!
Gracias por correr la voz.... tu blog hace ver a Mexico con una optica diferente, aqui solo nos conocen por mojados, no saben nada de nuestra cultura, y no nos quieren conocer. Pero gracias a blogs como el tuyo, hay un poquito de nuestro Mexico regado en la red, con unas descripciones tan maravillosas, que manera de escribir! Gracias por describirnos, por plasmar con letras nuestro color, nuestro folklore, nuestro sabor!
Sigue adelante, espero que sigas teniendo mucho exito y que sigan disfrutando del calor de los mexicanos para que nos sigas deleitando con tus versos. Y que para los ex patriotas que estamos de este lado, nos recuerdes lo bonito de nuestro Mexico.
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Kanasinero 17 years ago
Visiting this website always makes me wonder why I live abroad. I was born in Yucatan, but have lived most of my life in California. Now that I have a family, I wonder if my children would enjoy Yucatan life as I did for the brief 5 years I spent there during my adolescence. I did marry a Yucateca, so it would not be difficult to convince her, but I am afraid of not making it in Yucatan. Yet, I am tired of the pressure of big city life.
Visit my hometown, Kanasin! A quaint town in the outskirts of Merida.
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Working Gringos 17 years ago
De nada, Bruce. I must tell you that most of us who live here, when it gets right down to it, feel as if we were chosen to be here. Its inexplicable, but we wouldn't be here if we didn't love the mystery.
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